56 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



marginal band on both pairs of wings — see especially Plate II. 

 fig. 6. It also generally appears earlier in the season (August 

 to early September), but autumnata fluctuates greatly in this 

 respect. But, as Mr. South remarked to me in conversation on 

 the subject, some of these distinctions are closely paralleled by 

 those observable between Hypsiiietes sordidata {fiircata, Thnb.) 

 and its bilberry variety, to the latter of which specific rank has 

 never been accorded. It is only right to add that the forms 

 from the Isle of Lewis appear somewhat intermediate between 

 autumnata and filicirammaria, and Mr. Christy has a similar 

 form from Argyllshire. 



A few further points of interest will be brought out when we 

 come to the consideration of the specimens figured. I may say 

 that, although seventeen of the twenty-nine were taken or bred 

 by Mr. Christy, and two others were reared from ova with which 

 he kindly supplied me, I myself am entirely responsible for the 

 selection of the specimens which are figured. It has not been 

 easy to choose from amongst the many beautiful and interesting 

 forms of autumnata which Mr. Christy has lent me, and I should 

 have liked to devote both the plates to these, but for the desira- 

 bility of showing a number of forms of its allies for comparison. 

 Plate I. contains nothing but autumnata, all being Ptannoch ex- 

 amples ; Plate II. shows two more autumnata, ionr Jiligrammaria, 

 and eight dilutata. 



Up to the present, I believe that 0. autumnata has only twice 

 ostensibly been figured, namely, in Westwood's Supplement to 

 Wood's 'Index Entomologicus,' at fig. 1727, and in Guenee's 

 'Atlas,' pi. 18, fig. 7- The former figure is very satisfactory, 

 the latter somewhat the reverse, and ruined in many copies by 

 the chemical change which has taken place in the whitish ground 

 colour. Newman's "pale variety of this common moth" {dilu- 

 tata) is apparently in reality an autumnata, probably also Freyer's 

 pi. 426, 2 (likewise a supposed aberration of dilutata), is really 

 a strange form of this very variable species. I ought further to 

 mention an interesting plate (Ent. Eec. vii. pi. iii.), by my friend 

 Mr. J. A. Clark, of Piannoch specimens, unfortunately figured 

 and described as Jiligrammaria, but unquestionably referable to 

 autumnata. It has remained to Mr. Christy to first furnish the 

 material for a plate of examples called by their right name, and 

 such should certainly be of great use to our working lepidopterists. 



Plate I. figs. 2 and 3 represent the type forms of autumnata, 

 Bkh., and are practically the same form which the German 

 entomologists send out as " dilutata y sir. autumnata, Gn." Fig. 2, 

 the male, has the groups of lines (two and three respectively) 

 which traverse the fore wings almost united into bands ; fig. 3, 

 the female, has them a little weaker than usual, and the precise 

 type-form would stand just mid-way between these two figures. 

 The hind wings also, in the German type, are often as devoid of 



